I’ve noticed that the songs that have the most impact on me are the ones that tell really vivid stories. They can put me in another time and place. They can make me have feelings, good or bad. They can even sometimes inspire my own stories.
To be clear, I certainly enjoy the occasional mindless pop song. Just after work today, I was shaking it to GDFR. But those don’t have the staying power in my mind that the really poetic, story-rich songs have. I want to illustrate this with a few examples.
The Kicker: (explicit language!) This reminds me of the ending of my last relationship, I suppose, but I connect with the story telling aspect of it more than that. “There’s a lake at the bottom of our river” is a lyric I feel in my very soul. I know the feeling of a deep well of emotion for someone despite both of you having moved on. It’s such a beautiful, stirring way to express it. I can picture an actual river feeding choppy water into an otherwise-tranquil lake, the way emotions can still pile up into a relationship that has long gone cold.
Hemorrhage (In My Hands): This is a song I listened to a lot to get inside the head of the lead character of Arc 20 while I was writing it. Faced with a hard time – in my character’s case, a health crisis – you feel a desperation to still have a connection to your loved ones. In an interview, the writer of this song actually said watching his grandmother go through a health issue is what inspired him to write the song. As someone who has had her own fair share of health problems, I can easily see it. “Don’t fall away / and leave me to myself” is a feeling I’m sure we’ve all felt at least once. The fear of any single thing in life pales in comparison to the thought of facing whatever you fear alone. And the way it is expressed as “leav[ing] love bleeding in my hands” is very striking and poetic – as if their familial bond is its own living thing that is being injured by the other leaving when they need them the most.
Famous Last Words: Here we go, a happy one! The lyrics paint an extremely vivid scene of weariness and struggle (“I’m so weak / Is it hard understanding I’m incomplete? / A life that’s so demanding, I can’t speak”). But then he sings what are, to me, some of the most powerful words in music. “I am not afraid to keep on living / I am not afraid to walk this world alone.” I envision standing tall against a world of indifference and facing it proudly. This takes the idea from the other song and flips it 180º around. Even alone, I can face this. Even alone, I can keep on living. Sometimes this song brings a tear to my eye because it reminds me how strong I really can be on the inside. Just playing it back to write this article, I have chills…
Malibu: The music and lyrics of this song combine to put a scene in my head of the West Coast of the United States. It is a very California song. The imagery of the waves off the shores of Malibu “cleansing” someone who is suffering from addiction is such a beautiful one, even if it is also tragic. I can see it in my head, the two of them standing at the shore, letting the waves crash against the backs of their legs. “I can’t be near you / The light just radiates” is such a brilliant turn of phrase as well. At once, she is conveying that he is so bright to her, like a star, that it’s almost uncomfortable to be near him – and also conveying that he is burning out, and she can’t be near him, because she doesn’t want to burn out in the same way.
For a fun time, that last one was actually performed live by The Smashing Pumpkins and their version was amazing. Highly recommended if you like the original or the Pumpkins.
I suppose at the end of the day, someone with an imagination as active as mine could do this with almost any song. And I have done this with a great number of songs, actually – thousands, even! I just wanted to share a part of how music is such an important of my life, and how it can be a fun and uniquely powerful way to expand one’s imagination into worlds yet unknown.